THE CHANGING SEASONS: OSCILLATIONS 
Figure 8. Surface weather map for 20 May 2009, showing strong onshore wind flow in the Southeast, with most of Florida's Atlantic 
coast affected by southeasterly gales while Georgia and the Carolinas had easterly winds. Seabirds noted from shore in Florida were 
many and varied and included two species of booby, two of tropicbird, and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, whereas the Carolinas and 
Georgia missed these species but noted ample numbers of migrating storm-petrels, shearwaters, jaegers. South Polar Skuas, Arctic 
Terns, many of these very near shore. Note also in this map that California's onshore winds of March and April have started to slacken. 
Map courtesy of and © the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
Figure 9. Surface weather map for 31 May 2009, showing the almost windless conditions along most of the California coast. Map 
courtesy of and © the Nationai Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
fascinating reading. Among the species af- 
fected were scores of storm-petrels, including 
large numbers of Leach’s, many Sooty Shear- 
waters, a few Arctic Terns and jaegers, and a 
handful of Greater, Manx, and Cory’s Shear- 
waters, as one would expect during mid-May. 
South Polar Skuas were relatively common 
within sight of land in North Carolina but 
were not recorded in Florida, while Floridi- 
ans found both Red-billed and White-tailed 
Tropicbirds onshore and both Brown and 
Masked Boobies, as well as five or more 
Band-rumped Storm-Petrels, none of which 
turned up along beaches of the Carolinas or 
Georgia during this event. Offshore of North 
Carolina, counts of all three jaegers. South 
Polar Skua, Arctic Tern, Sooty Shearwater, 
and Leach’s Storm-Petrel were well above av- 
erages, with counts of the skua off the charts 
for the North Atlantic Ocean. One has to 
wonder, too, whether the two White-cheeked 
Pintails in Palm Beach County, Florida 25 
May arrived with the strong southeasterly 
gales from the Bahamas; there are at least a 
few similar records of the species associated 
with nontropical lows like this, even in cool- 
er months. 
The transition out of La Nina and toward 
El Nifto conditions that seemed to be occur- 
ring toward the end of the spring 2009 sea- 
son in the Pacific was accompanied by a 
slackening of onshore winds, especially in 
California. Steve Rottenborn, Mike Rogers, 
Jeff Davis, and Ed Pandolfino write that in 
the early part of the spring, the “winds gen- 
erated considerable upwelling and cold sea 
surface temperatures, conditions accompa- 
nied by high marine productivity and krill 
abundance.” When these conditions abated, 
food became scarce, and Common Murres, 
Brandt’s Cormorants, several species of gull, 
and other seabirds suffered breeding failure 
and in some cases high mortality. The associ- 
ation between wind, upwelling, and bird pro- 
ductivity has been understood in the eastern 
North Pacific for some time, though other 
factors, such as epidemic disease, sometimes 
complicate the picture. In the East, however, 
very little research has been done on the ef- 
fects, for instance, of strong southwesterly 
winds on colonial waterbirds. Such offshore 
winds are known, to fishermen at least, to 
make fishing poor over large areas of the 
South Atlantic Bight — and known to birders 
to make counts of jaegers and other migrants 
rather low in spring. If the North Atlantic Os- 
cillation is relevant to such conditions, per- 
haps we should be more mindful of its status 
as we seek to relate what we see out birding 
to not just weather but also climate. 
Eurasian ... settlers? 
We have become resigned to the idea that 
Eurasian Collared-Dove may soon be re- 
named Pandemic Collared-Dove, in honor of 
its ever-expanding range, and most contribu- 
tors who live within earshot of one or two 
(many of us) remember the days before we 
heard its faintly squeam-inducing flight call. 
380 
NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS 
